PixelJunk Eden: Trophies Galore!

UPDATE: Hey, folks. Thanks for all the comments. It’s always great to get feedback straight from the fans. I just wanted to give you a short update on Eden.

First of all, be sure to check out the demo when it hits the PLAYSTATION Store tomorrow. Just a hint – if you explore the “main menu” you’ll find access to more than one demo stage. Also, to give you an idea of how cool the YouTube recording function works, here are a couple of videos taken by someone at Sony today.

This first one shows single player on an early stage.

This second one shows some 2-player action on a later stage, although the
demo and the full game feature multiplayer for up to 3 people.

We’ve just wrapped up PixelJunk Eden, and it has been an incredibly interesting project from start to finish. We started off by getting an intern programmer from France to try and implement Baiyon’s out-of-this-world foliage designs, and he did a good job with the help of one of our tech guys, and managed to replicate the look. So after he went back to France, we assigned a proper team and went gung-ho into development. That was around December last year. Back then all it had were plants. There was no player character or any real idea for what the game would become, but over the new year I had some sparks of inspiration and that’s when things really started getting moving, leading to the demo video we played at GDC ’08.

Anyway, this all leads into trophies somehow. Ah yes, because our development cycle is so short, we find ourselves being able to implement all the latest OS-supported features before anyone else can. For PixelJunk Monsters it was Dual-Shock 3 support, but this time there have been a couple of really cool new features and we have put both in. These are the Trophy support and the YouTube video upload support. Both of which are really cool.

Initially we implemented all our own trophy screens etc., but then Sony Computer Entertainment built it all into the OS, which really helped us out. The trophy comparing and your “gamer card” screen really up the ante for those hard core gamers out there. In fact, it might make some of the non-gamer types even turn hard-core as chasing trophies can be rather addicting.

PixelJunk Eden is a short-form PSN title so there are fewer trophies when compared to, say, a Blu-ray title (which can have the esteemed platinum trophy), but we still managed to pack in quite a few. To begin with, you can get a bronze trophy for opening every “seed” in a stage. This is quite a challenge on some of the stages as the gardens are large and expansive. Then there are trophies for a load of other things, such as destroying 500 of the “prowlers,” or collecting 15 “crystals” in one jump. My personal favorite is a trophy that you can only achieve in 3P mode, where you have to “volley” a player between you back and forth five times without him/her landing on a plant, a bit like tennis.

The YouTube upload feature is going to revolutionize how people share tips. Up until now it has been limited to people with video capture equipment, but from now on, anyone can record their game and upload it directly to YouTube from within the game! It is as simple as pushing one button to start and one button to stop and upload, and there is no affect on the gameplay thanks to the power of the PS3 and its abundance of SPU processors.

For more info on the YouTube API and PixelJunk Eden and to see it in action, take a look at the YouTube API Blog.

Oh, and we have been totally inundated with requests for trophies in PixelJunk Monsters via some kind of patch. As this goes to press, I can say we are definitely looking into it – you just need to badger Deborah Mars and her team in Santa Monica to get some dates set. If we release a patch, we will not only implement this but we will also implement XMB music and a couple of other things.

One final note about Eden, I really can’t emphasize enough how much pure fun this game is, and I’m saying this as a gamer, not as the developer of the game! My mail box has been overflowing with direct mails full of the same kind of comments from online review sites who have preview copies and I have never had that before, so we must be onto something (fingers crossed)!

hey guys, sorry about the lack of online multiplayer support but our games are designed with very precise controls and in the case of Eden there are some very interactive physics going on so the lag would completely kill co-op play.

Out of our three games so far the only one that could possibly support online multiplayer in the future is Monsters and perhaps we will put that feature into sequel.

Don\’t let this feature hold you back though, the PixelJunk series is thoroughly addicting even in one player mode.

I gave the demo a go and its fantastic. Took a little bit of time to get proficient with the controls but once I got them nailed the game has a wonderful flow to it. Really looking forward to the full game. Art style and music really make the experience, great work!

(A Beacon of a Crown shines in the sky)
Q-Games: Nice.
PS3: I couldn’t find any mini bosses.
Q-Games: We’ll Sargeant?
PS3: Oh It’s Lieutenant now. You really started something. Bent gamers running scared. Hope on the PSN.
Q-Games: But?
PS3: The Blog is lost… and everyone is demanding Trophy Support for every game release.

Like I said before, without online, it’s just not a game. Especially if you have co-op trophies. Dev’s should be forced that if they make co-op trohies, they have to have online. Not Everyone Has Someone To Game With In Person!

If gta can have a bunch of players on screen destroying everything in sight and it takes about 30 cars exploding at once to create lag, I don’t see why PJE can’t do online.

Lack of this feature will hold a lot back. I’m still getting it but now I’m not as excited for it as I was. I’m more let down than anything.

This is very saddening. If it doesn’t get patched, I’ll probably play it for less than a week and then that’ll be it.

It\’s difficult to explain but GTA and other 3d online games get around lag by using prediction and other methods, but a lot of it comes down to the fact that in 3d nothing is very precise. For games where collisions and controls aren\’t pixel and frame perfect lag is less of a problem because the player doesn\’t notice if his car hit another car 10 frames later than it should have.

It\’s also the reason why we haven\’t seen an online 2D Mario Bros. game after all these years.

It\’s obviously something we\’d love to be able to implement, if it was physically possible to do.

That said, I think you might find yourself playing it for longer than a week, you never know!

im playing the demo now and im reallllllly enjoying it. but as i keep missing my jumps to other plants i see that ima be playing this game for hours and probably end of buyin 3 more dual shocks due to the fact that i fell all the way back to the ground missing inches of the (clear) and i always like to finish wat i start. this game is jus so addicting i wouldnt be suprised if they brought out a psp version of the game.
wat i reallllly want to kno tho is wen is this game coming out.. at first i thought i dont care bout a jumping seed and plants..but now i cant put the game down and im hoping the game is released b4 september

I’m getting sick of all these games that have online only and completely neglect offline multiplayer. I want to play with my friends in real life, not some stranger across the globe. I’m really glad you guys made the choice to stick to offline co-op. I know you guys will receive a lot of complaints so I figured I’d leave some positive feedback about offline co-op.

It’s difficult to explain but GTA and other 3d online games get around lag by using prediction and other methods, but a lot of it comes down to the fact that in 3d nothing is very precise. For games where collisions and controls aren’t pixel and frame perfect lag is less of a problem because the player doesn’t notice if his car hit another car 10 frames later than it should have.

It’s also the reason why we haven’t seen an online 2D Mario Bros. game after all these years.

It’s obviously something we’d love to be able to implement, if it was physically possible to do.

That said, I think you might find yourself playing it for longer than a week, you never know!

/end quote

You are soo right…if you have ever had a friend record an online game in gta with you, you would notice that later when you watch it thinks werent quite the same for both of you..

Explosions look different, physics are not synched (there are different physics animations in each screen) sometimes your player will be standing and facing a different direction on both screens. this is because the physics animations are done on each individual ps3 to put less strain on the network…its really hard, almost impossible, to synch physics engines identically across a network. its easy for 2 people on one ps3 then the ps3 is in charge of everything…rather than trying to make some kind of setup where they are calculated together or something like over the internet.

Online co-op is a compelling selling point for me, I usually pass on most games without it. When is Stardust HD going to have it? I think that game would be great.

About PJ Eden, I am hit or miss on whether I am buying it. So far I hate the timed element, I wish the demo didn’t have the time or a training mode, because it’s just annoying to keep starting over. And some of us don’t have the time/interest to sit there for three hours either. I wanted to explore and get a feel for the game, but that timer is so annoying.

All I can say is keep playing – you are almost at the point where it will \”click\”.

As for the timer – it is an extremely important element that gives the game tension and addictiveness. Some of the best games in the world have timers – for example all the 2d Mario games.

However we also give you ways to increase the time by yourself – if you fill two seeds and then jump into them sequentially without landing on a plant you will get a free scattering of crystals to pick up. You get a similar scattering every time you get a x5 combo.

Also, if you want a pollen bonus, use the SIXAXIS \”spike\” maneouver – jerk the controller down when you are jumping.

A core concept of PixelJunk is to make sure our games actually have *gameplay* at their core, and sometimes that makes them feel a little difficult at first because we pack a lot of new concepts and controls in. Using the new concepts we strive to make the games as addictive as possible.

I hope you guys of Q Games are still reading this blog. I’ve just downloaded the demo and playing it right now and I have to say… that game is bringing tears to my eyes. If this game won’t win any prices for its originality than I kick myself. I LOVE IT!!!

will this game be supporting custom soundtracks on launch? or later in a patch? or not at all? i’m very excited for Eden, excellent game (from what I’ve seen) the demo set up was kind of annoying though, i didn’t really like having to delete my save file over and over again, not that it was a huge deal, just a minor inconvenience

Hey, hope your still reading the blog post. I will for sure by this game, GREAT ideas, GREAT art, etc, etc. Also remote play is AWSOMe, please keep putting this in your games! The one questions I have though, is how can I do the spike move when on PSP??? Everything else works great but this, Please let me know if there is a way and if not, could we please get that added to a patch? Thanks for the great series, have bought EVERY single one!

Hope you are still reading these posts. I just have one questions, love the remote play features in your games, the only thing I can not do is the spike move with the PSP, is there a way to do this or can we get it added in a future patch? Thanks for the GREAT series I have bought EVERY one!

Great to see you still answering questions multiple pages later, I asked earlier about the spike move on PSP and while I understnad no sensor in the PSP could the move not be mapped to a button also? I would think this would be easy to do, but maybe I am wrong, please if you can explain it in a bit more detail. Thanks for the GREAT games! >;)

From the trailers and previews, I didn’t expect Eden to be high-level fun. But after playing through the demo, through every combination of obtained spectra, I can hardly wait for the full release.

The controls were definitely frustrating for about the first 45 minutes of play. But it’s true, eventually the controls just “click” and maneuvering your grimp feels natural.

To get the most out of the demo, I used multiple accounts (or deleting game save date). After getting all five spectra in garden-one, I started over and got 4 in garden-two, and then 3 in garden-three. After that you can go back and try to plant all seeds before clearing (although I could not find a counter for total planted seeds). There are about 30 in g-one, 40 in g-two, and 30 in g-three.

In the demo there are 3 gardens with 5 spectra in each. The main menu shows a total of 50 spectra can be collected. Does this mean we will have a total of 10 gardens in the full release? And what is the relatively large spectra within the garden-three petals? What can we expect in the full release that goes beyond the demo, besides new music and garden cosmetics? The gameplay for the windy garden looks very cool.

Love the Eden demo (going to pick that up) and just got Monsters to see whats all the fuss about. Love everything you guys have done so far.

With Eden, its probably the most addictive simple game I’ve ever played. And the co-op looks incredible, now I just need to pick up another controller.

The only grip I have about the games is the white box at the bottom middle of the screen. I have a plasma and I am hesitant to play for to long because of burn in (overly paranoid, but that will help it last longer). What you did in the Eden demo (lower it’s brightness) works but I’d rather it have a much darker tone (say dark gray with lighter gray text, like an inverse), so I can enjoy the game for longer periods of time and feel safe about it. Oh and if you guys do the trophy update for Monsters, can you add the burn protection feature to that as well.

@227 Both games do have burn-in protection. It just lowers the intensity of the white, but it definitely helps. I remember playing without it for about 30mins and noticing a very nice big burn in blotch, but when I turned on the burn-in protection it was greatly reduced even after 1+ hours of gameplay. I do wish that there was a way to remove static text/logos from games. While burn-in is temporary, it can be a little distracting when there are cutscenes or movies that have a pure color and you can really notice things like the pixel junk logo.

I think I’ve deleted my gamesave at least 3 times now; this game is really awesome!! And its just a demo! I’m really looking forward to picking this one up Thursday and playing for hours on end!

Congratulations Q Games!! I think you have made the game that will really start to bring attention to the PlayStation Network, and I predict you’ll be in the top downloads spot for a few weeks. Awesome job!!